


Guardian Angel, the Angel of Death

by The_Bastard_Writer



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Assassination, Attempted Murder, Bombs, Dark, F/M, Guns, Mobile Suits, No Endless Waltz, No Frozen Tear Drop, Pacifism, Peace what Peace, Politics, Post-War, War, Wing Zero (Endless Waltz Version)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 06:26:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28649013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Bastard_Writer/pseuds/The_Bastard_Writer
Summary: Relena is Vice Foreign Minister of the Earth Sphere Unified Nation and as always she is a powerful young woman with many enemies. Can her guardian angel protect her in this new post war era? And how will all this shape the future of the former queen of the world?
Relationships: Relena Peacecraft/Heero Yuy
Kudos: 7





	Guardian Angel, the Angel of Death

DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN GUNDAM WING OR ANY OF ITS CHARACTERS, ALL OF THIS IS FOR LOVE NOT PROFIT.

How do you find a man with no picture, no name, with nothing but a memory?

She honestly had no idea, she would be fooling herself to think she did.

Almost seventeen she liked to believe she knew better, that she was done with deluding herself.

Barely a woman yet as she packed her bag she swore in the mirror she was done being a girl.

Looking at her fathers pictures at her nightstand, one a hand painted family portrait with scorch marks on the edges and the other a snapshot taken at some government function so long ago she could no longer remember its name. 

She wondered when did she stop being the little girl who used to beg for a father’s attention and when did she become the woman she had to be.

Relena Peacecraft, ruler of the Sanc Kingdom, Queen of the World at fifteen.

It happened so quickly if she had blinked she might have missed it. One moment she was thinking about birthday parties and dances, the next she was an international symbol for peace. 

Had she been robbed, her youth stolen from her by the symptoms of a chaotic era.

The naive girl in her made her think selfish thoughts, unspoken demands for pity, the poor little rich girl who lost everything because of a war that she had been a victim of since before she could even walk.

The Peacecrafts, her mother, her father, taken, executed for their political beliefs before she ever had the chance to truly meet them. Her surrogate father, minister Darlian assassinated, the bomb exploding both his body and his lies.

Relena Darlian, Vice Foreign Minister at sixteen. She was the minister now and like the only father she ever knew, they also plotted to take her life.

When she was a child, she thought guns were dangerous, things like bombs and mobile suits, those were dangerous, yet now many years later she had painfully learned the most dangerous things a person can ever possess are ideas.

Relena had no military training, she commanded no army, even her position was a token yet even now over a year after the end of the war and she is still one of the most wanted women in the universe.

The first attempt on her life occurred before she took office, before she even clocked in on inaugural first day of work they tried to kill her. Because of them she will never be able to use the ladies room without feeling the tiny hairs on her back standup. All because of the hard lesson they taught her, the dangers of a suspiciously empty bathroom.

Relena thought she would have been used to this sort of thing by now, violence and death usually directed at or around her. Foolishly she believed with the war being over that meant that the violence and death had ended along with it, that something as innocent as a quick stop to the ladies room before her first meeting was safe.

She remembered first hearing the sounds of struggle, the struggle to break free, the struggle to breath, the struggle to kill her in order to make some sort of political statement.

A bold statement that their politics are the right ones. So right that they would leave her on the floor of a freshly cleaned restroom in a government building, her body providing deadly proof of their political triumph and her defeat.

Thankfully, Relena paused for a moment, she was horrified to use the word thankfully when speaking about someone's death, yet she couldn’t help it. That someone wanted war, wanted all the battles and the death that comes with war, and if they had succeeded in killing her then her death would only be but the first of many.

Thankfully, he was there, her guardian angel that doubled as the angel of death. Relena could still hear them, the legs kicking against the closed door of the stall next to hers. The last gasps of air of a voice that if it had gotten it’s way would have forever silenced hers.

To think she was concerned at first, worried someone was in distress. Technically she wasn’t wrong, someone was in distress but her angel saw to it that their suffering would be over soon.

Standing in front of the stall, she naively knocked and asked if there was anything she could do, did they need her to call someone. Her angel had warned her that her kindness could get her killed yet here that angel was doing what he had to so her kindness could survive.

“Relena get the hell out of here”

He said it from behind the stall, and all thoughts of the situation ceased.

At that moment she was just happy he was there, that she would see him again, and maybe he would stay this time.

Those thoughts were shattered when the kicking legs succeeded in kicking the stall door wide open and into her waiting face. As her friend Dorothy would later put it, she “fell backwards and landed on her ass looking very silly”. The blood from her freshly broken nose ruining her new pants suit, the one she laid out the night before with such pride and excitement.

Looking up expecting to see him, she instead saw the man who had planned on being her killer. The killer’s shabby dress shoes flailing in the air attached to the slacks of an inconspicuous suit, his glasses hanging off the side of one ear slightly distracting for his contorted expression. 

Relena never got his name, the wallet found in his pocket belonged to a man who had been dead for a week. Whoever her attempted murderer was, he tried in vain to save his own life, his hands grabbing at the wire around his neck trying to relieve the pressure that was crushing his throat.

“Heero”

That was all Relena could say, she couldn’t see him but she knew he was there. Standing on top of the toilet seat, his hands pulling on the wire that saved her life.

Relena knew she should be disgusted at his actions, but she couldn’t. After surviving the war, she had seen death far too many times to feel that way and even if she could, no matter what Heero did it never bothered her.

“Your hurt”

Two words, better than the one she said when she last spoke, if he had stuck around longer she wondered if she would have eventually put together a full sentence, maybe even something as bold as a question. 

Her eyes betrayed her, when he released the now dead assassin, the first thing she focused on were his hands. They were bleeding, the wire that saved her life had also embedded itself into the flesh of his palms.

Before Relena could do anything, he reached down and helped her up off the floor, his bloody hands leaving red handprints on her suit. She watched his eyes, the way he noticed his thoughtful gesture only further damaged her already ruined appearance.

“Sorry”

Relena responded to his one word by shaking her head profusely like the people on those game shows she pretends not to watch at night, a dramatic physical act of signifying a wrong answer. 

Pulling her handkerchief, the one that was supposed to be for show that came with her once new suit, she quickly seized his hands and wrapped the one that visibly bled the most.

Heero saved her life, she wrapped his bloody wounds, they had been here before and the feeling that they would probably be there again confused her.

What do you do when seeing the one you love requires something awful to happen?

Even Miss Noin and Lady Une didn’t have an answer for that, she could have asked her brother Milardo but seeing him usually brought about similar circumstances to seeing Heero although she saw him much less often.

Relena’s white skin turned slightly red when she thought of the kiss Heero gave her after she wrapped his hand. Quick and direct like one of those punches he reserved for an enemy, combined with a softness he reserved only for her. 

A tame show of affection compared to their relations during the war but enough to make her forget the gravity of the situation just long enough for him to slip his hands out of her grasp and walk out the door and once again out of her life.

That was the first attempt on her life after the war, but it was not the last. 

This shouldn’t have surprised her, with someone whose ideals threatened so many powerful people around the universe one would think Relena was always on guard. Always suspicious and watching every corner for the next threat, but she wasn’t.

She couldn’t allow herself to fall into paranoia or into any frame of mind that would make her question those around her. 

At the risk of being foolish she had to believe in people, believe that they didn’t want to harm her and the ones who did were misguided and they deserved her sympathy not her hate.

Pacifism was a dangerous road but if she did not walk it who would she be?

A sixteen year old girl playing dress up, making fancy speeches with big words that held no meaning?

The second time they tried to kill her she did not even know an attempt on her life had been stopped until well after it had already been foiled.

As Relena Darlian, the Vice Foreign Minister of the Earth Sphere Unified Nation, she was expected to go to the galas and other formal events. They often reminded her of her dances back at school, right down to the bad music, cheap liquor, and dirty politics.

The most powerful men and women sipping wine and champagne, smoking cigars and mocking those brave enough to attempt the dance floor. 

To an outsider the whole event appeared to be a farce, some bourgeois charade where the universe’s elites can show off their wealth while bragging to their allies and demeaning their enemies.

The truth of these occasions was much more insidious then they were petty. Wars were decided on the dance floor, guns traded in the courtyard, and any incorrect slip of the tongue can lead to an economic depression or worse.

Relena’s angel had his mobile suit, his fabled gundam, that was his armor, but she armor of her own. Her pants suits, all white, champagne, rose gold, all colors that gave off the aura of peace. In this field, her battlefield, peace was her weapon, she wielded the dangerous ideal of pacifism like Heero did his beam saber and like his saber, her kind words cut deeply.

To say she was shocked at the annual gala for the winter solstice when she heard his voice over her shoulder asking her for a dance was the understatement of the year. 

Relena had not heard from him since the restroom months prior even after she tried looking for him. His Gundam pilot friends had promised her they would tell her as soon as they heard anything but she suspected some of them were lying, especially the one priestly looking one with the braid.

Yet here he was, leading her by hand into the lion's den and engaging in a fighting style she only knew how to use when he was with her, the waltz.

“Heero”

Once again he reduced her to one word. She had at least a million things to say, things she had rehearsed countless times in front of the mirror and in the shower, yet now that he was right in front of her, all she could say was his name.

He opened his mouth and she looked in his eyes, burning with anticipation. Was he going to tell her why he came back? Was this going to be his long over due explanation?

“Relena”

Any other women would have been disappointed, angry even. There were also a million things she had wanted to hear from him and yet with one word, a word that she more than knew already, none of that mattered. The word million stayed with her for a moment, a million years ago she remembered sitting in an elegant classroom at St. Gabriel’s and hearing the question, 

“What’s in a name?”.

Hearing Heero say hers gave her another million things she could answer with.

This time she kissed him, stealing his form, she moved in quick and gave him a sharp peck to the lips. It wasn’t the first time she took a page out of his book but she was thankful that this time it had worked out much better than the last.

“Hmm”

Denying her even the one word, he gave her just a syllable, one that spoke volumes. Volumes she knew she would spend the next month trying to decipher.

Before they could finish their dance, the music stopped and a managerial voice spoke over the building sound system. There had been a bomb threat and the gala was to be evacuated.

Using the surprise, Heero once again slipped out of her grasp and disappeared into the crowd.

Later, she was told in private that three bombs were found, one in her office upstairs, another buried underneath her reserved space in the company lot, and finally a small one tucked into the cushion of her assigned seat at the gala itself. All three had been disabled prior to being found, the only witness was her much relieved driver. Pagan didn’t have to tell her who he saw, Relena already knew.

The following week several explosions made headlines. Three of her political rivals, war mongers with their large investments in everything needed to make a war from the guns to the bandages were killed. One blew up in his car, the other his office, and finally the last was destroyed in an explosion that came from beneath a bar stool. 

Heero’s overly excitable friend, the priest with the braid, called her with his theories, but like with Pagan a week earlier, she knew her guardian angel even when he was the angel of death.

Most leaders, even the self righteous and visibly brave ones, are shaken when attempts are made on their lives. They calm down, even if it is momentary, a way of laying low till the wolves abandon them for more pressing prey. Relena could understand why they did this, she wasn’t ready to brand them as cowards like her friend Dorothy. They had families, loved ones, people to think about if something catastrophic were to happen to them.

Looking back at the pictures on her nightstand she sometimes wondered if she still had a family would she do the same. Moving her gaze from the nightstand to the bed, one side ruffled from too many restless nights and the other forever undisturbed, she recognized the cold hard truth. 

Relena had no one in her life, she was alone. She woke up alone, ate breakfast alone, dinner alone, stayed up late working alone, and finally crawled into bed the same way she started, alone.

In the past the solitude of her life didn’t depress her as one might think, instead she had used it to empower her.

Relena did not retreat when attempts were made on her life, she charged. During the war she watched Heero fight once, she remembered the way he would throw himself and his gundam right into the middle of his enemies, daring them to strike him down. 

In her own way she did the same, the day after the near bombing, she made a speech, the week of the her angel’s retaliatory bombings she made another speech.

When she wasn’t at the podium speaking about the virtues of pacifism and the inherent bravery that accompanies the peaceful road, she was in public. The public, the most dangerous place for a leader with dangerous ideas, Relena chose to make it her second home.

Marches, rallies, mass picnics in the park, she shared her beliefs about a world without the need for violence with any who would listen to her.

As a Vice Foreign Minister, she was required to travel constantly and whenever she arrived at a new region or colony, Relena would devote time to walking the streets and engaging the average citizen in what she called “heartfelt” conversations. 

During her adventures she met people with many different experiences, mothers of sons lost in the war, veterans of all genders, orphans, and others just like herself.

People who had lost everything in the war, their homes, their jobs, and their futures.

Relena smiled, fondly as she remembered telling them “if all you have left is your life, then what are you going to live for” then she would introduce pacifism, the idea that if together, humanity decided to live for peace then no one would have to lose like they lost, that an end to suffering was possible and unlike the promises of the past this one did not come with a price measured in blood.

Relena couldn’t deny that it was in this act that she put herself at most risk, a risk that most of her fellow politicians saw as unnecessary and even foolish. She also couldn’t deny that her days with the people had directly led to the third attempt on her life.

It was a beautiful day in the region formerly known as the French riviera and Relena couldn’t wait for her days' meetings to end. Some ministers lived for the meetings but she could never stand being in a cold room with even colder people for too long. Her eyes checking the meeting agenda every chance she could hoping the next item would be their last.

When she was finally free it was already past midday and if she didn’t get out soon it would be dusk before she had the chance to enjoy at least one conversation.

The Mediterranean coast gave the city long sandy beaches, ideal for strolling and meeting with the people who needed the implementation of her ideals the most.

Within minutes a crowd of people had formed around her and Relena was speaking with a woman not much older than herself who lost a husband and a brother in the war. She had been so enamored with the story of this woman that she didn’t care to look at the man who had been slowly edging his way towards her. 

Dressed in beachwear like everyone else around her, she wasn’t sure she would have paid enough attention even if she had seen him a mile away. The former queen of the world easily captivated her audience, nobody saw him pull the small pistol out and point it at her.

Perhaps the many attempts on her life had started to give her some kind of six sense for them, because Relena turned just in time to see the gun pointed at her and to lock eyes with the assassin pointing it.

Of course, whatever six senses she had were a waste, at this moment she knew it wouldn’t have mattered if she turned at all, it was already too late.

“Why do you feel the need to accept violence”

She asked, now staring right down the barrel of the gun.

The assassin grinded his teeth, caught off guard by her bold attempt to speak to him.

“Please, put down the gun and let us talk this over, I am sure”

But the assassin regained his composure.

“Shut up Bitch”

Relena stopped, but instead of showing anger or shock, her face expressed interest. She had engaged in conversations with people who disagreed with before and it would take a lot more than calling her a bitch to rattle her.

“Your ideas are lies that make the people weak, you are weak, and like all weak things who get in the way of the strong you must die”

At the end of the assassin’s statement a loud gun shot was heard. Relena did not even flinch, she had long been ready to die and if this was to be the time of her death then she would at least have both eyes open to see what is to become of her.

This was a mistake, the gunshot was not from the assassin but from her angel who had sniped her attempted murderer from a nearby building. The heavy caliber rifle round shattered on impact, exploding the assassin’s head all over Relena and the crowd around her.

With everyone covered in blood and brains, the crowd was silent and staring at her.

They were waiting on her, for Relena to scream or to run, to show them how to react to what just occurred.

Relena wiped her mouth and then cleared her eyes as much as she could. Taking a deep breath, she told those around her not to be afraid or to be angry. That if pacifism wasn’t real then those who still believe in battles wouldn’t try so hard to stop it.

When her voice died down, and the applause ended, she watched her crowd dissipate, each person leaving with their head held high.

It was only then did she feel what had happened that day, the closeness she came to death and the possibility that she was now more of a living idea then an actual person.

Relena didn’t return to the hotel or even call Pagan to pick her up, she didn’t want her old caretaker to worry, considering the layer of dried blood that covered her like an extra skin.

As the sunset she laid down on the beach and let the waves hit her. The water started at the soles of her bare feet and worked its way up her body to her neck and hair. Slowly washing away all the damage of the day.

The coldness of the water reminded her she could still feel.

The setting sun blinded her, closing her eyes. She laid there until sleep finally took her, not caring that she made herself an easy target for another assassin.

When Relena woke up, it was dark and the moonlight reflected off the waves that she laid soaking in.

“Do you have some kind of a death wish”

Hearing her angel’s voice, she turned her head to see him sitting beside her.

This time Relena did not say a word, she just smiled up at him wondering if he could see her expression using the moonlight alone.

It was nice letting Heero do the talking and her choosing to remain quiet. He stood up and extended his hand to her, she took it and after some help up they were together walking down the beach.

“Come on, we better be going”

We, Relena liked the sound of that, but she knew from experience not to get her hopes up, however she also knew from experience her hopes were entirely out of her hands.

She awoke the following morning to find herself naked and alone in her hotel room, Heero had slipped out of her grasp again.

When she returned from her trip she was asked to attend a special meeting concerning her work and behavior as Vice Foriegn Minister.

Relena expected her superiors to urge her to be more careful and express their thanks that she returned safely. Instead she was called a radical and her sanity was questioned by the Earth Sphere Unified Nation president himself.

The president and his council told her she had an obvious death wish and that her assassination attempts had become an embaressment to the post war goverment. If she wanted to die for her beliefs that was fine but she had to do it on her own and not take the ESUN with it.

Some council members called her a martyr with a nasty habit of dodging the bullet. Others speculated about the identity of her mysterious guardian angel going as far as to suggest that she may have ties to terrorist organizations. 

Before officially dismissing her from her position as vice foriegn minister, the president told that she would not be the next Heero Yuy, that he had seen the death of enough pacifist martyrs for a lifetime.

Relena couldn’t help but smile at the irony of being compared to thee Heero Yuy considering her relationship with her Heero Yuy. 

After having the nerve to wish her good luck, they informed her that her office had been emptied during her trip and that her personal things were already loaded into a car they had waiting for her.

Relena was tempted to lash out, to yell, to curse even. Her friend Dorothy would have made them drag her out kicking and screaming, but she was a Peacecraft. She had nothing if not her dignity. 

With her chin up, Relena thanked them for their well wishes and expressed a hope that whatever the future may hold, may it lead them down the path of true pacifism. She then walked out of the room with the echoes of a fake applause behind her.

At first, Relena was tempted to call Pagan to pick her up but the loss of her job and more importantly her mission in life had begun to set in. She felt her legs become unsteady and tears form at the sides of her eyes. She had to get out of there, she had to leave the building before she lost her composure.

Choosing to take the car her now former employer had provided for her, the drive home was longer than expected. At the moment Relena figured it was because the government driver had no clue on how to get to her home. Thankfully he had put up the partition so he couldn’t see her stare out the window.

Relena looked out into the large city as they drove by, the city around the ESUN governmental capital was dense and its population lived on top of one another. Some thought it was depressing but she recognized the life that still found a way to exist even in the grey shaded world the people found themselves in.

She hoped that maybe if she looked hard enough, Relena could find her future outside of her tinted window. That somewhere out there was a sign, a guide for her.

Being almost seventeen, most would call her young, some would even say she was still a child, yet after the end of the war she felt anything but young or childlike.

Relena looked at her own reflection in the window and behind her young face, hidden in her eyes was her real age. Drained and used by the world around her. 

Up until now, Relena had thought she at least was on the right course, fighting for the ideals she loved and believed in. 

Before she could continue her thoughts, the car jerked as it came to an abrupt stop. For a moment Relena worried they may have had an accident. Then she heard the driver's side door open and through her window she saw the man who had been her driver run off as fast as his legs would take him. 

That was when the shadows engulfed the car.

The driver had left her stuck in the middle of a narrow alleyway, and now both sides were blocked by mobile suits. The deadly Virgo model from the last war, a model that was supposed to be banned.

In addition to the first two, several other Virgos had landed on the rooftops of the buildings on both sides of the alley. Relena barely had time to process her impending death when she heard the hum of their large beam cannons charging. In one instant they would all fire down at her simultaneously, the explosion so large there wouldn’t be anything left. 

She closed her eyes and said his name.

“Heero”

The man who was never there when she wanted him, had the unique ability to always be there when she needed him.

The sound of heavy machine guns quickly overshadowed the hum of the Virgo’s cannons. The two Virgos around her car were riddled with large rounds that could only have come from another mobile suit. 

When the Virgos exploded, Relena had expected to be swept in the blast and when everything went dark around her she almost thought she did, until the darkness receded and she once again was back in the grey light of the alley.

Relena had been shield by the enormous wings of the Wing Zero, Heero’s gundam.

“Heero”

She yelled his name this time as she stepped out of the car to watch him take off and engage the other mobile suits. 

The Virgos tried to fire their cannons at him but he was too fast, using his beam saber to cut them down where they stood.

“Miss Relena we must be going,”

The arrogant voice that briefly took her attention away from her angel could only have come from Dorothy Catolonia. Her only friend who had been suspiciously missing from the office that day. 

She took another moment to watch as Heero sliced a Virgo in half before getting back in the car.

Relena did not want to ask how Dorothy got the keys to the car or knew where to find her. Dorothy was an extremely capable woman who had enough connections to rival the gundam pilots.

They sped down the alleyway and through the back streets to her home. Dorothy spent the drive admonishing the president and the council, calling them fools among many other colorful names. 

Relena didn’t pay much attention to Dorothy, she had turned in her seat to watch the battle through the back window.

Heero and Zero ran through the remaining Virgos, cutting them all to pieces with his beam saber. The area she had just been trapped in was left in ruins with Zero presiding over the flames. 

ESUN alarms had now sounded and the military was being mobilized. Before any additional forces could arrive in a giant flap of its wings, Zero took off into the sky until it disappeared from view.

Relena breathed a sigh of relief, Heero had made it out and for the first time since the driver fled the car, she was back to her thoughts.

Dorothy dropped her off at her home and told her not to leave, she believed ESUN would not be stupid enough to try another assassination attempt so soon espeically after their first one ended with the appearance of a gundam.

As soon as Relena walked into her empty home, she stopped for a moment to collect her thoughts, then as she made up her mind she wrote a note for Pagan so he wouldn’t worry.

She then started slowly packing her bag leading her to the moment she found herself in now, getting lost in her thoughts of family, work, Heero, and the many assassantation attempts that had occurred since the war ended. 

Relena was going to leave, she was going to find Heero and with him at her side she was going to figure out her future. 

This brought her back to the question she started with,

How do you find a man with no picture, no name, with nothing but a memory?

**Author's Note:**

> THANKS FOR READING, MUCH LOVE, HOPE Y'ALL ENJOYED, COMMENTS/QUESTIONS ARE ALL APPRECIATED  
> Follow on IG @The_Bastard_Writer 4 Updates and New Stories


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